Santa
Clara County
Biographies
WILLIAM
HOLLENBECK
WILLIAM HOLLENBECK, father-in-law of
Mr. Briggs, and after whom Hollenbeck avenue is named, was born in the
Mohawk valley, N.Y., August 20, 1808, and while yet a child was taken
overland by his parents to Marshall county, Ill. Later his chief occupation consisted of
running flatboats down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In Marshall county
he married Harriet Corey, a native of New York, and of Rhode Island and
Connecticut ancestry, and in 1844 removed to Memphis, Tenn., where he engaged
in the wholesale grocery business. In
1849 he took advantage of the exodus to Panama and for a time ran a hotel there
known as the American Hotel, and in August, 1850, reached San Francisco, where
he managed a wholesale grocery business for six years. In 1856 he bought the Rayner and Leavesly ranch of three hundred and twenty acres west of
San Jose, and in 1857 purchased the Oak Shade farm of two hundred acres on the
San Francisco road. Later he became the
owner of the adjoining place of Hall and Crandall, and also bought the Lewis
place, owning in all about a thousand acres.
Mr. Hollenbeck was the father of five children: Mrs. Emeline
Hunter, of Missouri; Mrs. Mary Brown, of Rhode Island; James Hollenbeck,
deceased; Barton S. Hollenbeck, of San Diego; and Mrs. Elsie
Briggs. His death occurred in 1882, at
the age of seventy years. His scheduled
property evidences his success as a land owner and developer, and the esteem in
which he was held indicates his worth as a man and a pioneer.
Transcribed by Donna Toole.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 434. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Donna Toole.